The Triangle Universities Nuclear Lab, called TUNL (like tunnel) by its users, will celebrate 50 years of research and education with a weekend program at Duke Nov. 6-8.
In November 1965, during the go-go years of the Nuclear Age, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission announced a $2.5 million award for the purchase of a tandem Van de Graaff accelerator to be housed in a new lab behind Duke's physics building. It was front-page news throughout the region. Duke physicist Henry Newson’s pitch to the DOE worked where two earlier attempts had failed because he had the bright idea to include UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State as equal partners in the lab.
Today, the shared lab still brings in about $7 million a year in federal research support. Its versatile instruments are used by researchers across the Triangle for work in nuclear physics and other fields such as national security technologies, materials science, medicine, plant physiology and space physics. Research for nearly 300 Ph.D.s from all three universities has been completed there.
The weekend’s activities will include a homecoming of sorts for TUNL alumni and will include lab tours and talks about significant accomplishments of the lab. TUNL invites current and former students, post-docs, faculty, staff, research collaborators and other friends of the lab to attend. Registration is required.